 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Welcome to Hawaii Food and Farmer's Series. I'm your co-host today, Matt Johnson, and as always, we are here talking to the movers and shakers of Hawaii's local food system. You can join the conversation by tweeting at Think Tech HI, and you can also call in by dialing the number at the bottom of the screen coming in. So as always, we have amazing guests, and we have a co-host with me today. We have Stephanie, who everyone has seen on the show before. Thanks, Steph, for being here with me today. Thanks for having me as a co-host. This is our first time together. It's sweet. First time. So very exciting. So we're not quite sure how it's going to work out, but we're just going to kind of feel it and see how it goes. So I'm just going to try to actively engage with you both. So our guest today is Pumai Waigert with GoFarm Hawaii, this is an agribusiness consultant. Pumai, thank you so much for being on the show. Thanks for having me. And I'm actually kind of shocked. This is what? Show number 81. And I can't believe it's taken us this long to get you on the show, because in terms of movers and shakers, you're like the top of my list when I think of that. Thank you. So we don't have a lot of time and we have a lot to talk about, so we're going to get right down to it. Tell me. So Pumai, give us a little background on how you got into agriculture. Okay. My background is in travel and tourism. And then in 2002, my mom and her business partner co-founded a lamda farm called the Lee Kula Lamda on Maui. And then in 2008, I went and started to work for them. They were really doing some neat stuff with agritourism, agri-innovation. They're really diversifying business. And I worked with them until 2011. And then in 2011, there was such a need or demand for agritourism. So I started to privately consult for other people who wanted to diversify their businesses. So I got to meet and connect with a lot of different people in the industry throughout the state. And then I traveled a lot, went all over the place. And then now I work for Gulfarm Hawaii, which is also statewide. So I like that statewide vibe. Okay, okay. So you were mentioning agritourism and for those in the audience who don't quite ... I'm sure that everyone's smart enough to put it together, but if you could give us a quick ... Let's not make assumptions here. Oh, that everyone's smart. That you can ... Let's not make that assumption at all. Could you give a quick, I guess, definition of agritourism, especially what it is here in Hawaii? Sure. So agritourism is really anywhere where agriculture and visitors can come to connect. So maybe a long time ago, I feel like people thought it had to be a big operation. And Hawaii, one of our pioneering agritourism venues, is Kualoa Ranch. But within the last five to 10 years, we've had a lot of wineries, distilleries, small farms, family farms. Agritourism doesn't have to be so big. It can just be a place where there's agriculture and people can come see it. So that's kind of my easy version of it. So let's talk a little bit more, like kind of staying with the agritourism and the Maui Lavender Farm that I know that you and your mom are a big part of. Talk a little bit about that. How did that begin and who are the partners in that? And what was so special about the Lavender Farm? Okay. One of the really special things about the Lavender Farm is it was a farm where Ali Chang was the farmer and my mom was in sales and marketing. So they kind of came together. He wanted people to come to his farm, but when you're just in farming, you don't really know how to open that door to another industry. So they made friends and he was like, hey, can you bring people up here? And she just opened that tourism door and she just brought all of her people in there. One of the greatest innovations, though, that I think that she did that is what gets us work and why people want to hire us, is she took an agricultural product and she made it an affordable luxury. And that was sort of how she changed the game, how we changed the game for agriculture in our own little way because it had never been accessible and it had never been luxurious. In Hawaii, we come from a plantation culture, a large, large agriculture. So being able to come to a place that was kind of boutique and we had a beautiful view and you could have tea and you could buy things, nobody really was offering that at the time. So that was one key thing that they did. And then the other thing was it was very community and culture-relation-based. So a big part of the marketing effort was about knowing people and giving back to the community and collaboration, where in agriculture it was always kind of, for a long time, kind of, this is what I do and I don't want to tell you my secrets about farming and we didn't have any secrets in farming, really, as far as making products and changing things up. She just went out and asked people, like, hey, I have lavender. I don't know how to make jelly, but do you know how to make jelly? I don't know how to make eye masks. Do you know how to make eye masks? Yeah, that's it. Can you want to make lavender-infused vodka? Oh. Yeah, so she really took it out of the agricultural industry and that was sort of, it opened all these other doors. So your mom seems like she was obviously a huge influence not only in your life, but your career as well. And I wanted to see what other kind of mentors you had or any other issues that kind of made you passionate about agriculture and agritourism in general. Good question. I had a lot of mentors. I'm really, really lucky. I had a lot of people in travel and tourism and then also in agriculture opened doors for me and really led me into their homes, led me onto their farms, and tell me their secrets to success and survival. And I, Donna Cheng, she's the great Donna Cheng, who's been on the show. When I was in the aglearship program, I was with a lot of, I was really, I really felt like I was out of my league. Like everyone, there were people with doctorates and inventors and politicians and directors and I was like, Lavender Farm Girl. And I remember going into, like, you were in that group, you were, you were, you were like a director. Yeah, he was, he was pretty high profile. I was like, I went to talk to her and I said, you know, early on, because it was really intense, like our first meeting altogether, like everyone was like super hardcore ag and I was like, ah, lotion and skulls. And I went to talk to her and I told her, I don't know that I belong here with this group. And she just looked at me and she's like, you're going to be here. You're going to have to know who you are and know your worth and know that what you bring to the industry is what the industry needs. Because everybody here in this group needs marketing. Everybody in this group is looking to diversify business. So get over it. Okay, and I'm still here, still going for it on Think Tech with You Find People. You know, you've made it when you make it on the internet. Here I am, here I am. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. So you kind of started with the family and your mom. You know, it's a real big, amazing farm that's still there up on Trey Maui. It's a popular destination. There's weddings happening there. All different kinds of, there's food there as well. Yeah, tea and scones, products, you know, culinary, bath and body specialty. That was actually one of my mom's big hustles was she was, because people said like, oh, it couldn't really be done. She just took that idea and tried to do as many as she could. We actually would creatively debate about that a lot. Yeah, like I think 85 products is good to go. I think we've diversified. Yeah, I think we've diversified. So then at that point, other businesses wanted us to help them do it too because it's, in agriculture, I find that it's hard for people to make partnerships. If you weren't raised that way or you've never done that, I mean, in agriculture, people grow stuff. So getting out there and saying like, hey, do you want to team up, it's a little weird for them. And I think that leads into where you come in. You kind of facilitate those meetings, that networking. And you've been talking about, you were a consultant basically for agritourism. Was that part of an entity or organization or just strictly independent? So my mom and I, well, my mom, she was the president and executive director. We kind of wore a lot of hats for the CEO, whatever hat there was to wear. And for the whole agritourism association. And it's a nonprofit organization, but it allowed us to really do educational outreach. And through that educational outreach, connect with farmers who are ready to take their business to the next level. There is a certain amount of capital needed to diversify your business. So farmers really see like, oh, you can make a lot of money, but you have to have some money to start with. And really switching from just production ag to service, big mental shifting. Yeah, and I really liked what you were talking about. They're used to being, they're growing stuff, right? Or they're ranching. And not able to always look up and see the broader scope of people who are so interested in them. So I think that's great that you're able to offer that one-on-one. And that's every industry, too. I see it in every industry, not just agriculture, where they only see their industry. Right. And what their people do and what their sector is doing. And really to remain relevant, we're having to start to go into other people, like multi-industry collab. You know, to stay relevant because it's more of a lifestyle for us. We want all things. And we as in the consumer. Before we get too much into your consulting part, talk about this trip you took around the world. Yeah. Because I heard a little bit about it. I was like, wait, what did you do? So for the last two years, before I started with GoFarm, I had an incredible opportunity to travel. And I wanted to travel and I wanted to get paid. Yeah. So like, whoa, the dream. The dream. Everyone's dream. Everyone's dream. So I went to my mom, momager, slave driver mentor, all of that. And I said, I want to travel. And she's like, you're going to need money. I was like, no, I don't. So I tried to travel without money for about a month. And then I came back and I was like, okay, that's not going to work out. And we decided, okay, what do we really do? What do I love to do? What am I going to do when I travel? And what I'm going to do when I travel is the same thing that I do always in my life. Like, I love to go to farms. I love to farm tour. Trying to find local. I'm trying to find sustainable. So we wrote a grant with Hawaii County to do global agritourism research to see if Hawaii was globally competitive. And that was able to fund me doing comparisons in all different parts of the world. I also did a grant with the Department of Agriculture. And that one was statewide. So I got to go to each island and look for different farmers because that's the thing is people always come to us and they'll want to know, I want this. Do you know who does it? So we're more of like a resource. There's so many hidden farms out there that aren't even really hidden. But there's no lists or there's no way to find them. So those two grants really took me to the next level because I got this global knowledge for Hawaii and then this statewide knowledge. Where did you go? So I did some comparing, some global comparing in the Caribbean. So I went all over. So I did Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Belize. I got to go to Dubai, Iceland. I'm throwing out my exotic ones too. These just happen to happen. Europe, Japan, you know, those kind of fun places. Well, we're definitely going to hear all more about the trip. Unfortunately, we have to take a quick break. So we're going to take about 60 seconds and we'll be right back. Aloha, I'm Carol Mon Lee. 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And we haven't even gotten to the GoFarm Weigart because there's just so many other interesting things to talk about. Just chipping away. So we're going to dive right back in. Okay, let's back in. So right before the break, we were talking about this amazing, what did you call it? Global comparing. That you were doing, that you got paid to go do. So you were just starting to tell us where you globally compared. Yeah, tell us more about that. I think we ended in Asia. I think we ended in Asia. Good chance. Yeah. Always ends in Asia. And I feel like my biggest takeaways were, or the whole point of comparing was, is Hawaii ahead or are we behind? In terms of? In terms of travel revenues as far as agritourism, as far as economy, like why are people trying to go to Hawaii? Are people trying to go to Hawaii? Are we losing market to other places? And I chose the Caribbean because it offers a lot of the same things. And you can do it for a lot cheaper. And especially because we were trying to target a lot of the East Coast. Like the East Coast is going to go to the Caribbean. Why are they going to come all the way to Hawaii? So really looking at how agriculture fits into the tourism economic engine. Because in Hawaii, nobody really moves for any other industry. Right. Yeah, like there's tourism and then there's everybody else. Oh, and the military. So that was what I found was, I mean, every day we're kind of just on the cusp. You know, we have a lot of pros here. But we are behind competitively in a lot of different areas. So agriculture, you know, really can be translated into tourism in so many ways that the traveler wants. So the top things in tourism right now are cuisine, culture, and adventure. And again, agriculture can fit into all those things if we know how to do that. So that's that. And that our pipeline to Asia is pretty, is growing and strong. So these were just some takeaways. It does all end in Asia. It is. All this comparing was super relevant. And because a lot of the travelers today are international travelers. So that sort of domestic travel market, we already have that. So how are we going to get, or the people that are, we're trying to market to travel all over the world. So that was kind of my big takeaway. Anyway, that ended. That came to a, the dream ended. That came to a close and that ended this summer. So I did private consulting. I was trying to figure out what I'm going to do with my life. You know, it's hard to come back to a real world after you've been in life. Have you been paid to travel the world? How do you come back to a place? And I was really lucky because GoFarm Hawaii was looking for someone who had experience in agribusiness marketing. And I read the description and I was like, oh my God. It's like I wrote it. And I called them and I said, hey, what does this mean? And what's GoFarm Hawaii again? GoFarm Hawaii is a program that runs through CTAR at the University of Hawaii. It's statewide. It's a new farmer training program. That's a center for tropical agriculture and resources. Boom. You got it. You got it. Win for you. Win for you. So I just started with them in September. And I love it. I'm so excited to be there because before I went to GoFarm, you had to be able to afford me. And I was used to getting like, you already had a farm. You were already successful. You were already doing production. You already had a brand. You already had these things. And I had to come in and sort of like help you reorganize stuff, you know, business therapy, really. Where now I get them like right at the beginning. So we can give them all these tips and these ideas as they're developing what kind of business they want to be. So it's really exciting stuff. Yeah, I really like how you talk that you're a consultant and you had all these great mentors and teachers in your life. And that you're evolving into that now for new farmers and talking about that framework of including agritourism from the beginning, especially here in Hawaii. And you've been talking about, you know, you had to be able to afford me for a site visit to come out and do this one-on-one business therapy. I thought you could talk a little bit about the other avenues you do outreach, you know, either if it's like workshop series or are you doing one-on-one site visits still? Or are you just working with GoFarm students? Funny you should say that. Me and Matt. Sounds like a plug. Yeah, hashtag ad. Me and Matt were just on a statewide women farmers series tour where we went to each island and we sort of shared our experiences in the industry with ORCD and ORCD while we research. Resource Conservation Development Council. That's okay. I just want you to talk about how you do workshops. Don't worry about the acronyms. We'll translate. I should have just pointed to you. So in those kinds of workshops, it's actually any workshop that there is. It's really an opportunity for people to come together and network. One of the biggest keys to marketing is your network, is knowing people. So in my part, that is what I'm trying to share with people because it's hard to know people. And a lot of times people think that they need to know a lot of people where you only need to know like two. Like two people that know a lot of people. So that is probably one of my biggest keys that I think people can take away from being in a workshop with me. It's sort of like, hey, get out there. And also one of my big things that I like to let them know is be brave. You got to be brave to be out there and it's hard for people in any industry because it's scary to grow. That's fantastic. Talk a little bit about, so you're consulting now. You're doing these workshops. You're helping out beginning farmers with GoFarm Hawaii. What kind of projects or, I guess, actual operations that are out there now, or maybe you see happening in the future that get you excited? Ooh. That's a good question. Thank you. All right. So a lot of the culinary scene over the last five years has really taken off. And every good chef now has a good farmer. But we're seeing market shifts in food manufacturers and food manufacturing. So people looking for locally made products and where they can visit either the place where some of the ingredients came from or where they're making these products. And in marketing, really understanding the story of whatever food people are eating. So that is kind of, you know, culinary, the food industry, I don't see that dying off. But all these little sort of niche spinoffs of the culinary industry is really exciting because we grow all that food. So even as a traveler, when you go someplace, you're looking for like what are locals eating or local food or where do I find these things? And a little bit of the sad thing for Hawaii is we throw a lot of local food away, even though one of our goals is local food production. So it's really about creating these avenues where people have access. Access is a big thing. And seeing a continual evolution of the farm-to-table scene in Hawaii is big. So for people who don't farm, I feel like for people who farm, farm-to-table is like what they live. And then for other people, that's just like a dining idea, what they're going to do. And that's great for the agricultural industry because that's their lives. That's our lives. We always farm-to-table. So being able to provide those experiences for people in so many different ways in so many different places really, I feel like, really positions the new farmer, the young farmer, anyone who's trying to do something different than large commodity egg. So I feel like those opportunities, I see them a lot with our goal farmers. So that's incredible. Unfortunately, we're out of time. Oh, boom! Something just whispered in my ear. We've got to wrap it up. Okay. But thank you so much for sharing your stories about starting off with a lavender farm with your mom and going around the world. Traveling the world, the dream. Seeing everything that's going on. And now working with beginning and also established farms, helping them set up their ag tourism operations. So that's great. I also want to announce that not only are you the guest on the show today, but you're also going to be joining as a host. So thank you for joining me. So you're going to get more of me. We're getting lots more of you. Lots more. Stephanie, thank you so much for co-hosting today. Thank you, Matt. That was a lot of fun. I know. And as always, you can reach us sometimes on Thursdays. A Hawaii Food and Farmers series. And we will see you next week. Two weeks from now. Aloha. Thank you.